Tarzan Goto is a Survivor in Love Again

Tarzan Goto/Shinigami vs. Yuiga/Drake Morimatsu Yuiga Produce 10/30/04 - GREAT

PAS: Yuiga is a Kurisu trained Joshi wrestler who started in Neo and just kind of hangs around Japanese dirtbag indies for 20 years or so. She had both teamed and wrestled against Goto a bunch before and it makes sense she would want to have him smash her with barbed wire boards in the main event of her produce show. Shinigami and Morimatsu were around and did some stuff, but this was pretty focused around Goto's shambling menace and Yuiga using her Judo to try to avoid blows and throw him. There were some stiff shots, Goto using his size and a couple of cool throws, plus it looks like it was in a industrial warehouse used for human trafficking which is a great look for a sleazoid Japanese indy match.

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Found Footage Friday: WRESTLE YUME FACTORY~! KITA KANTOU GROUP CUP TAG TOURNAMENT~! ABSOLUTE KILLERS~!

4/29/97

This show is available from @itako18jp on Twitter who is really doing incredible stuff making this incredible rare footage available. Send him some money.

Azteca/Basara vs Tadahiro Fujisaki/Wolf

PAS: I am going to forgive a lot of sins if you just lay it in violently, and all four of these guys are wrestling like 90s indy puro guys. Fujisaki is the young Fugo Fugo and he brings the violence even as a pup. Real thump on all the forearms and kicks from all four guys. There was one bad looking whiffed Azteca kick which The Wolf sold anyone, hope Fujiwara cussed him out backstage for that, but otherwise everything looked good, and Basara especially had a sick run of nasty offense near the end of the match. The way you want to start out a tag tourney for sure. 

MD: You do sort of spend the whole match waiting for Basara to get back in and then when you do, you're rewarded for it. He's basically Super Strong Machine with a beard on his mask and slightly different, but just as impactful offense. He came in, absolutely trucked Fujisaki with three of four huge and nasty power moves like a waterwheel slam and power bomb before crushing him with a frog splash only to get rolled up quickly to end it.

Before that, you had a long stretch of Azteca vs Wolf and they were matched up well, taking it up and down with gritty matwork, pretty nasty kicks (some that hit far better than others) and just enough flash, Azteca's somersault senton and Wolf's spin wheel kick in the corner, for instance. Pretty fun way to start this thing off, even if I miss Basara already.

ER: The first thing you notice about Basara is his excellent mask, with long mustache and billy goat's beard like he's the Lorax, or a shabby Pei Mei. Then you notice that he's wearing capri tights, and has an upper body that looks like baby Masa Saito. Any Japanese wrestler who opts for the capri tights is automatically one of the most dangerous men in the room, but add in a budding Masa Saito body and you know they're a menace. I liked everyone here, thought each person brought something. Azteca and Wolf were near style mirrors, throwing kicks with similar speed and style and each having their own way to work a headscissor. Azteca threw a KO kick a foot over Wolf's head, which was really the only misstep, but I also liked how Azteca sold Wolf's kicks more than Wolf sold Azteca's. Wolf had a spinning heel kick in the corner that landed with real thump, and his high bridge fisherman's suplex looked so good and had such a tight grip that I bought it as a nearfall. But this match was all about Basara's hot tag, where he simply entered the ring and forced his will on Fujisaki. Headbutts, a sidewalk slam that looked like he was aiming to concuss, a senton that aimed to land as heavy as possible, and a frog splash that was big enough that it felt like a finish. I liked the real finish, where Fujisaki reversed a vertical suplex into an inside cradle, because Basara looked like he was really straining to complete his suplex while Fujisaki was weighting him down into a cradle, believably dragging him down into a loss. 

Kamikaze/Masakazu Fukuda vs. Hiroyoshi Kotsubo/Masayoshi Motegi

PAS: Another fun WAR tag with really stiff guys working stiff. Kamikaze is just a super fun wrestler to watch, and he especially turns it up at the end, with a really nasty stiff clothesline and a bunch of tubby highspots which landed hard. The Motegi and Kotsubu team is a bit generic, but work and land hard. They definitely put the right team over though. 

MD: This was good from bell to bell. I thought Kotsubo and Fukada worked especially well together, lots of tricked out reversals including one great fight over the arm at one point. Motegi asserted himself the most, taking over pretty much every time he came in, though they were able to isolate his leg and tear it apart a bit mid-match. There was one slap fight between him and (I think) Fukuda and I could have used more of that, especially since the only match with him. Fukuda and Kamikaze opened things up with basically the first real double team flurry of the match to pick up the win on Kotsubo.

ER: I'm kind of used to Motegi being one of the guaranteed worst guys in any given match, which isn't even so much a diss to Motegi, but more that he is often in matches with more interesting guys. Here he looked like young aggressive Rusher Kimura and was teamed with a real punk in Kotsubo. Kotsubo was super aggressive on the mat and worked holds like a bully, flattening guys out just to punish. This got real good when Kamikaze stopped being a pushover and started throwing Kawada kicks at Motegi's forehead then kicking him straight in the kneecap to drop him. He was really bending Motegi's leg on a kneebar, and that knee work came back spectacularly late in the match when Kamikaze broke up a bridging German with a sweeping kick to take out the bridge and make Motegi yell. Motegi made this great one legged tag out, throwing a knee and pushing off his good leg to leap toward Kotsubo, and Kotsubo came in and immediately threw a backfist at Kamikaze's cheekbone, demanding the weaker Fukuda tag in. Kotsubo's victory roll triangle on Fukuda felt like something he really should have been reserving as a finisher, but it was no doubt cool as hell. Motegi takes a Kamikaze clothesline the way Rusher would have, and him getting blown up by that clothesline makes his crucifix reversal of Kamikaze's next clothesline even better. I bit at that nearfall for sure. The ending was tight, real smooth, with a Kamikaze corkscrew senton straight into a Fukuda top rope double stomp, straight into a Kamikaze moonsault. Each of the three hit flush, and Kamikaze's sitout powerbomb was strong. 

Ryo Miyake/Tarzan Goto vs Shigeo Kato/Shinigami - EPIC

PAS: This match was really awesome, pretty classic Japanese tag structure with a veteran teaming with a younger protege. Goto is the perfect guy to be a  veteran mauling a younger guy, and Kato shows a lot of fire, including a great looking dive over the top rope. Goto also does some fun work stomping and punching Shinigami's claw hand.  Miyake has a generic look, but puts some really thump behind everything he threw. Great greasy diner version of an All Japan tag.

MD: This was everything I wanted from this match up. Kato and Shinigami were the world's best Kane and X-Pac basically. Kato was scrappy as hell, fighting great odds against Goto and Miyake. They had such a size advantage, could put so much more into their strikes, and then when they really went to town on him, it was with chairs and the bell hammer. He still flung himself headlong at them though, including literally with a huge flip dive.

Goto knew what he had in Shinigami though. They built to the two facing off (though Kato tried to run at Goto again before reluctantly making the tag). Of course Shinigami went right for the claw, but Goto was ready, stomping on the hand and then dragging the fingers over the ropes. That just built the anticipation for when he got it later reaching up from underneath to lock it in. He hit his claw slam on Goto and even the top rope one on Miyake but Kato wanted back in there and did well with a frog splash and pile driver, but Goto isolated him and mercilessly crushed him to eliminate he and Shinigami from the tournament. Goto and Miyake are basically not fair here.

ER: Remember when we, as tape traders, thought Tarzan Goto was "a fat load"? I know we weren't seeing the breadth of Goto's career when those comments were made, but he is one of the all time "everyone was initially wrong about him" guys in our circle. Were we all turned off by his sloppy appearance? The very thing that would make him stand out as an instantly unique presence in 2026? Whatever I first thought of Goto after seeing him on my first wrestling tape, a 9th gen 8 hr deathmatch comp, he now obviously looks like an ideal pro wrestler. Like Hashimoto. We got Tarzan vs. Tenryu (it rules) but we never got Tarzan vs. Hashimoto, but it's Goto performances like this that make it so clear that he was a sloppy man's Hashimoto. Goto had the perfect mix of Kurisu shoot stiffness and incredible worked offense. He is capable of headbutting a man hard enough to scramble both brains, or working one of the tightest safest worked headbutts possible. He will kick you in your spine as hard as possible or throw one of the more ungodly chokeslams I've seen, but he also has perfect worked punches, as if he worked Memphis in the mid 80s or something. Every clothesline he throws is the best clothesline on the entire show. He has such a fantastic left hook delivery, unlike anyone else's clothesline. His brainbuster was 100% the kind of move that should finish a match, but several things he did were the kinds of things that should finish matches. He is a presence. 

Kato and Shinigami - a man who seems like he is working an Alabama Onryo gimmick - are so small that you know they're going to be massacred, but I like how drawn out the massacre was. The ending was never in doubt, but this was not a 7 minute mauling, this was a match that gave Kato time to fight. Yes, it also gave Goto more time to fight, and that's what gives us Tarzan literally breaking a folding chair over Kato's face, giving him a wicked atomic drop on a table that did not budge even slightly (so he just slammed Kato as hard as he could ass first on a table), even smashing his head with the ring bell hammer! The match going nearly 20 minutes made Kato looks stronger just because of how much violence he withstood. Miyake is a Goto protege and is shaped exactly like Greg Valentine and throws elbows almost as hard as Valentine. He even walks like Valentine! Well, like a 5'7 Valentine, but still I had to go check when Valentine's first Japan tour was (five years after Miyake's birth, sadly). Kato shows constant fire and gets a great late match run against Miyake, hitting a frog splash with real impact (for his small size) and shockingly piledriving the much heavier Valentine Son. He spikes him good, too, so I guess his murder by Goto brainbuster was justified. 

Shinichi Nakano/Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs. Rikio Ito/Shinichi Shino - FUN

MD: Cleverly done but not too much of a match. Ito and Shino attacked right as Fujiwara and Nakano were entering the ring and they controlled on Nakano for a while. This included a half crab and an over the shoulder backbreaker. Both were broken up by Fujiwara, the latter with an awesome punch to the ribs.

Transition had Fujiwara break up a top rope move from the outside setting up a Nakano superplex. Then they tried to put Fujiwara into a crab, never a good idea. Finish had Nakano go for a Fujiwara Armbar and then both partners coming in for tandem stomps when Ito tried to break it up. Nakano got another Armbar in there to take it. They'd be working again so they kept this one straight and to the point.

PAS: This was a pretty nifty opening match, with Ito and Shino trying to turn it into a brawl, and then got dragged into Fujiwara's world. I really liked how Nakano kept going for the Fujiwara armbar, like he was trying to show his mentor what he had learned. Fujiwara is of course my favorite, but I liked how little he was in this match, he was like the shark in Jaws, and this was the first act of the movie, he is coming, but right now he is lurking. 

Tadahiro Fujisaki/Wolf vs. Gokuaku Umibozu/Masashi Aoyagi - GREAT

MD: I guess Umibozu and Aoyagi had a bye of some sort. Umibozu is Hirofumi Miura and this is an absolute mauling. Wonderful stuff. Aoyagi, of course, hits like a truck, or a tree trunk. He hits very, very hard.

Umibozu is fascinating though. There's this casualness to how he lays shots in, just slaps out of nowhere and sort of effortless kicks. Occasionally, Fujisaki and Wolf get some hope. Wolf tries about six different leglocks or twists in a row and Umibozu just casually snaps a kick over to knock him off. There's no real relief for them. If you're not getting the taste slapped out of your mouth by Umibozu, Aoyagi is cratering your chest in. In the end, Fujisaki managed a dragon sleeper, but Umibozu just brought up a couple of knees, rolled him over, hit a Scorpion Death Drop and then put his skull through the mat with a fisherman's buster. Serene violence, this one.

PAS: This owned, it is fun to see Fujisaki who would go on to be one of the all time great Puro crowbars as Fugo Fugo under the learning tree with a pair of all timer asskickers like Aoyagi and Umibozu. Aoyagi just put so much sauce on every shot, he throws chest punches like he is trying to defibrillate a flatline patient. Umibozu is like a hyper violent Orange Cassidy, he doesn't seem to be giving a huge fuck about the match, but everything he lands is horrifying.  

Takashi Okamura/Yoshikazu Taru vs. Kamikaze/Masakazu Fukuda

MD: And Okamura and Taru would be the other recipients of the bye I guess. First few minutes of this made me think it was going to be a mauling but it had one of the hottest finishing stretches I've seen in a while. Gripping stuff. They started hot too with Taru almost KOing Kamikaze with a high kick and then Kamikaze returning the favor with some straight punches that dropped Taru.

Once it got going and Taru came back and got the tag, Taru and Okamura did a pretty damn good job dismantling Fukuda and Kamikaze though. Okamura's shots were just nasty and varied. Honestly, Fukuda and Kamikaze did stay in it more than I thought they would, with Fukuda fighting out of the corner and Kamikaze hitting big offense on Taru and the two of them unleashing their combo in the corner that won them the first round match. It's just that whenever Okamura came back in he mowed through the opposition.

Stretch had them unloading on Taru. Tons of great offense including a deep deep exploder by Fukada. When Okamura came in, Fukada caught a foot and jammed an elbow down on the knee. But Okamura came back with the craziest jumping spin kick. Neither side could put the other away though. Finally, Okamura hit a Northern Lights but Fukada shifted somehow into a cross arm breaker breathtakingly and Okamura rolled him up for three. Hell of a finish.

PAS: This was really a hidden classic, just an incredible match between four guys most people haven't heard of. I love a Gi guys vs. Wrestlers match, with our Gi guys beating chunks off of the wrestlers and the wrestlers responding with big suplexes and Kamikaze's fat boy flying. Matt is right about the finishing run, it was as cool a back and forth spot fest finishing run as I can ever remember seeing, As intricate as your MPRO matches, but with everything given a chance to breath and the shots landed with brutal force. It feels like something which would have an incredible reputation if we had it in April 1997, as opposed to it showing up like magic nearly 30 years later. 

Ryo Miyake/Tarzan Goto vs. Gokuaku Umibozu/Masashi Aoyagi-GREAT

MD: I don't think it was until this match that I really appreciated just how many styles were represented here. Miyake and Goto were over the top and wild, downright hardcore while also being big and beefy and hard hitting. They ambushed Umibozu and Aoyagi to start. Aoyagi was able to fire back in the ring but Miyake held his own and hit a dive on him. That did some damage to his leg though and Umibozu was able to dig down on it right until Goto had enough and broke a chair over his head.

After that they leaned in hard on opening Umibozu up. He'd fight back a bit but get shut down by a Goto headbutt. He finally fought his way back against Miyake, hitting a DDT and unleashing Aoyagi on him. Lots of brutal offense especially in the corner until Goto had enough and started swinging a chair again, this time getting fed up and nailing the ref too. Things devolved into chaos (and a DQ) and chairs flying in and out of the ring. I can't say I didn't want to see Goto and Miyake up against Fujiwara but there really are no wrong answers at this point.

PAS: What a tournament this was, just great styles clash after great styles clash. Really a throwback to early days FMW here, with a pair of karate guys against wild brawlers.  This is the first time Cagematch listed Goto and Aoyagi against each other, but it feels like they have years of history. Just a pair of awesome characters whose differences work well in tandem. Both guys seem like unstoppable forces in different ways, and it just makes sense that everything broke down into a DQ, I was able to snatch a singles match between them in the same bulk buy and I can't wait to check it out. 

Shinichi Nakano/Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs. Takashi Okamura/Yoshikazu Taru-GREAT

MD: It's telling that Okamura and Taru were absolute killers in their last match and Nakano and Fujiwara really had their number here. They got their pound of flesh on Nakano with some nasty shots but it wasn't nearly the same. Also interesting is that this was more of a "moves" match from Fujiwara than most, and he's not really known for that. 

Okamura pressed him in the corner to start but he got underneath him and hit sort of a slightly exploding belly to belly. He followed it up with a headbutt and this driving body slam where he sort of lost him and sort of choke him down (Nakano actually hit one similar later so it might have just been an Okamura thing, but it worked for me). After Nakano's comeback (just a single strike out of the ropes but it was a nasty one), he hit another belly to belly on Taru followed by a pile driver. They had some nice kicks (but then so did Nakano) but they never really had a chance here.

PAS: I love when Fujiwara has contempt for someone, he spent much of this match sneering at Taru and Okamura, parrying their kicks and just showing contempt. It is such a great pro-wrestling vibe, and it always makes any comeuppance he gets so satisfying. Fujiwara and Nakano run the table here, but every shot Okamura and Taru land is awesome because it so visibly pisses off Fujiwara. 

Shinichi Nakano/Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs. Gokuaku Umibozu/Masashi Aoyagi-GREAT

MD: Despite being the finals, things go along pretty much how you'd expect early on. Fujiwara and Aoyagi match up very well. Fujiwara gets one very good sweeping takedown. No real advantage. Likewise Nakano and Umibozu. Nakano has more of a meat and potatoes style honestly, and he does take over with that. But then something happens right at the edge of the camera. Fujiwara takes off his boots. When Nakano gets that advantage and tags, Fujiwara enters barefoot. This cannot be a good thing.

And it is not. He immediately kicks Umibozu a few times and starts punching him in the face. Then he punches him some more, headsbutts him, and tags in Nakano who rolls him out and smacks him in the skull with a chair. Fujiwara makes it back in not long after and punches Umibozu more in the face. This is not going well for Umibozu. He fires back on Nakano finally, but Nakano hits one of the best recoiling shots I've ever seen to floor him. Umibozu finally is able to get a sweeping shot and redirect Nakano into his own corner but that was a hell of a mauling for a few minutes there. Barefoot Fujiwara, my god.

They fight even (including Fujiwara matching kicks with Aoyagi) until they catch Nakano laying by the apron and take over on him. They get a modicum of revenge on him until he's able to hit an enziguiri out of nowhere and tag Fujiwara in. Umibozu and Aoyagi still have the advantage though, right until we enter the Fujiwara headbutt comedy hour. I'll be honest, as entertaining as this was and as much as I would have loved it in a vacuum, this feels like the sort of thing that should have been in an earlier round. It does lead right to the finishing stretch where Fujiwara holds Aoyagi at bay while Nakano finishes Umibozu off with a power slam and Northern Lights to win the tournament. Lots of good stuff here. I just had that one nitpick.  

PAS: This match was so close to an all-timer level. Fujiwara taking off his boots to show Aoyagi "I can kickbox too Motherfucker" was one of the coolest wrestling moments I can remember. I have watched so much Fujiwara in the last 15 years, so great that he still haws songs I haven't heard before. Umibozu and Aoyagi are such asskickers, that they met barefoot Fujiwara shot for shot, and really laid an asskicking on Nakano. I agree with Matt that the Fujiwara ringpost hard head comedy spot kind of cuts off the momentum of the match a bit, and it never really gets back up to the violence inferno of the first 14 minutes. Despite the third act problems, I really loved this match, and this tournament was truly incredible stuff. Well worth the 10 bucks or so.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE AOYAGI

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE TARZAN GOTO

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE FUJIWARA

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I'm Far Away From Nowhere, On My Own Like Tarzan Goto

Tarzan Goto vs. Chainsaw Charlie Indy World 5/21/98 - EPIC

SR:What a matchup, and it ends up delivering exactly as it promises. Incredibly gory, violent and chaotic brawl. I am not super well versed in Terry Funks 90s output but from what I’ve seen this is easily among his greatest matches of the decade. The Chainsaw Charlie character is so fun, and Goto holds nothing back just tearing him up. I want nothing more from a brawl than two crazy characters throwing punches and sometimes guardrails at each other and taking crazy out of nowhere bumps, and this delivered that in spades. Terry throwing chairs across the arena and then getting a barbedwire board in his face was pretty damn crazy, same for the further barbedwire spots. Goto mockingly putting a spinning toe hold on Terry only to end up eating the barbedwire himself was also a really fun character spot. Then, after getting buried underneath a bunch of plunder, Goto suddenly emerged with a broken battle to carve up Terry further. I mean, the broken bottle is pretty much a regular spot in Goto matches, but it really felt like an escalating barfight move in this. 

Just as Tarzan decided to reprise the 1977 Funks/Arabs match and stab the shit out of Terrys arm and I was thinking the match was moving into MOTY territory, all hell broke loose with a bunch of Kai En Tai dudes running in to attack Goto on behalf of WWF. Still we gut more props thrown around, Victor Quinones getting walloped and Wally Yamaguchi taking a nasty powerbomb from Goto. Even with the non finish, this was everything you hope for and more. I’m kinda shocked this match is not legendary as it’s just incredibly bloody and also a well worked match. If it happened on a WCW PPV people would be talking about it to this day.

PAS: I wrote this up for the Ringer. Matches that Look Like Horror Movies. 

Horror movie comparison: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), The Hills Have Eyes (1977)

Chainsaw Charlie was a gimmick that the iconic Terry Funk used for a bit in the WWF, for some reason. It was always obviously just Terry Funk with a chain saw in his hand and pantyhose on his head, and they never bothered to pretend otherwise. He went ahead and brought that gimmick to Japan to face off with puroresu ghoulie Tarzan Goto in a huge Korakuen Hall brawl.

The match started with Goto meeting Charlie in the aisle and them sword-fighting with a chair and a chain saw. They brawled into the crowd and soon Charlie had blood staining his ridiculous-looking pantyhose mask—real gross-looking stuff. Funk looked like a guy who would jump out at you on a haunted hayride. Terry got thrown into barbed-wire boards and jabbed with broken pieces of wood, screaming and squirming the way only Terry Funk can. He was finally able to take over when he countered a Goto spinning toe hold (a signature Funk move Goto was applying just to be a dick) by kicking him face-first into a barbed-wire board. We then got broken bottles, more chair shots, and more shots with barbed-wire boards until, finally, Kai En Tai DX ran to support their WWF compatriot Charlie and started brawling with random Goto trainees. The whole thing ended in chaos, which is pretty much where it began and stayed throughout.

ER: Sebastian expressed shock at how this match isn't legendary. I love 1998 Terry Funk. I think Funk is one of the guys you can make an argument for as best WWF in ring guy of that year. I am a huge fan of Terry Funk, I have watched hundreds of Terry Funk matches, I am a huge fan of 1998 Terry Funk, and I did not know about this match. Somehow, not only is it not legendary, weird guys like me have not even necessarily even heard of it before today. That is outing myself as someone who either did not read Phil's Ringer piece, or that my brain is such now that I instantly forgot about it. Terry Funk, in his mid 50s, worked a Korakuen Hall Death Match in between a couple of Raw tapings. Terry Funk worked a Death Match in Japan, for some reason, as Chainsaw Charlie. He hadn't been Chainsaw Charlie in WWF for two months, and had only been Chainsaw Charlie for two months before that. Why did he work this match as Chainsaw Charlie? Why did he ever work any match as Chainsaw Charlie? 

But one man is holding up a sign that says Korakuen Chainsaw Massacre so wrestling as Chainsaw Charlie is 100% the correct choice. 

Was Terry Funk lying about where he was going and what he was doing? How many people were made aware that Terry Funk was taking his odd fitting grandpa jeans to Tokyo so he could roll around in barbed wire before wrestling Mark Henry in a King of the Ring Qualifying Match at the Rosemont Horizon. Whatever. Terry is bleeding through his pantyhose like a fucking Home Alone burglar two minutes in because he is a legend in ways none of us could have understood even then. Did WWF knew even 30% of what he was doing over there? Did they have any idea that a broken glass bottle came a couple inches from his eyeball? Did they know how violent Terry Funk was wrestling in between Raw tapings? 

Terry Funk throws chairs at Tarzan Goto's face and falls multiple times into barbed wire. I thought he was working as Chainsaw Charlie so he could hide layer after layer of insulation to protect from the barbed wire, but within minutes he is stripped to old man jeans and suspenders and the bloodiest fucking face and it's among the best he's ever looked visually in his entire faultless career. Goto clotheslines him at full strength without hesitation and made him rip his own hair out to remove barbed wire. Goto sliced an old man up with a bottle he broke on the ringpost after trying to break it over Terry's head. Goto grinned like an asshole playing his greatest hits after throwing a barbed wire board as hard as possible at the referee, a man who I believe Funk hit as hard as he could in the back before throwing him into the crowd earlier. Chaos is right. And Terry Funk took a week off from his gig as the oldest active wrestler in the biggest wrestling company in the world to go fight and bleed buckets and create new scars. Who's better? 

Tarzan Goto/Ichiro Yaguchi/Sheinryu vs. Arashi/Osamu Tachihikari/Ni Hao SPWF 3/11/99 - FUN

PAS:This has an awesome on-paper stimulation, it's an elimination match with the eliminated wrestlers being crucified on a barbed wire cross. Unfortunately it doesn't really live up to that cool idea,  folks don't seem that upset when put on the cross, and it is pretty meandering. These matches are the best when they are frantic, and this lacked that urgency. If we had a better set of ex-WAR Sumos I imagine it would have been great. Goto does carve up Tachihikari with a bottle, and Yaguchi looks cool, so it keeps it from being Skippable, but it is on the border. Barbed Wire cross elimination match is a killer gimmick and my guys in the Coven of the Goat should steal it for sure, just make it 12 minutes instead of 25. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE TARZAN GOTO

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Complete and Accurate Tarzan Goto

 

It is always rough looking back at old work. I have been writing about wrestling for 25 plus years and have some true whiffs. I have venerated stuff that stinks, and trashed stuff that rules. It is always important to reevaluate your priors and shift gears when you realize you made a mistake, and there are a fair number of DVDVR reviews where I trashed Tarzan Goto. I seem to remember coining the nickname Tarzan Scroto. I couldn't be more wrong. He is clearly in the absolute top tier of brawlers in wrestling history, an absolute wild man who brings a sense of real chaos to everything he did. He is also a guy with a ton of classics still unexamined. We launched this project with an IWA tag which is a absolute stone cold classic, and a match I have never heard anyone talk about before. I imagine there are a lot more gems to excavate.

1984

Tarzan Goto vs. Toshiaki Kawada AJPW 1/4/84 - GREAT

Tarzan Goto vs. Toshiaki Kawada AJPW 11/28/84 - GREAT

1990

Tarzan Goto vs. Masanobu Kurisu FMW 1/17/90 - GREAT

Tarzan Goto/Atsushi Onita vs. Kendo Nagasaki/Masanobu Kurisu FMW 4/1/90 - EPIC

1993

Tarzan Goto/Grigory Verichev/Sambo Asako/Sabu vs, Big Titan/The Gladiator/Dr. Hannibal/Ricky Fuji/Attila the Hun  FMW 2/19/93 - EPIC

1994

Tarzan Goto/Atsushi Onita vs. Genichiro Tenryu/Ashura Hara WAR 3/2/94 - EPIC

1995

Tarzan Goto/Mr. Gannosuke vs. Kendo Nagasaki/Yuichi Taniguchi IWA Japan 7/5/95 - EPIC
Tarzan Goto/Mr. Gannosuke/Dennis Knight vs. Keisuke Yamada/Hiroshi Ono/Shoji Nakamaki IWA Japan 7/5/95 - GREAT

Tarzan Goto vs. Dan Severn IWA JAPAN 8/20/95 - EPIC

1996

Tarzan Goto vs. Leatherface IWA Japan 3/1/96 - GREAT

1997

Tarzan Goto/Ryo Miyake vs. Shiego Kato/Shinigami WDF 4/29/97-EPIC
Tarzan Goto/Ryo Miyake vs.  Gokuaku Umibizo/Masashi Aoyagi WDF 4/29/97-GREAT
Tarzan Goto/Ryo Miyake vs. Shinichi Nakano/Masayoshi Motegi WDF 7/16/97 - EPIC
Tarzan Goto vs. Masashi Aoyagi Shin-FMW 9/29/97 - EPIC 

1998

Tarzan Goto vs. Chainsaw Charlie Indy World 5/21/98 - EPIC
Tarzan Goto/Masashi Aoyagi/Azteca vs. Dick Togo/Sho Funaki/Men's Teioh Indy World 7/22/98 - EPIC

1999

Tarzan Goto/Ichiro Yaguchi/Sheinryu vs. Arashi/Osamu Tachihikari/Ni Hao SPWF 3/11/99 - FUN

2004

Tarzan Goto/Shinigami vs. Yuiga/Drake Morimatsu Yuiga Produce 10/30/04 - GREAT

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Tarzan Goto Fire Blows a Signal in the Sky

 

Tarzan Goto/Mr. Gannosuke vs. Kendo Nagasaki/Yuichi Taniguchi IWA Japan 7/5/95 - EPIC

ER: Have we been fools for ignoring IWA Japan this whole time in our focusing on WAR and FMW and New Japan Russians and all else? Where have the IWA Japan champions been? This is fucking WAR baby, this is fucking all time great 80s Memphis, it's the kind of inter promotional Japanese realism that has aged perhaps greater than any other kind of 80s and 90s puro. The first VHS tape I ever traded for after getting the internet was a 6 hour IWA Japan/FMW/W*ing comp. It started everything. I had literally no idea what to expect when I put in this tape and within minutes I was watching 11th generation videotape wrestling of Sabu and Terry Funk and two guys whose identifies were too foreign and pixelated for my teenage self to recognize seemingly burning alive in an outdoor ring that gets dangerously engulfed in fire. And now it feels foolish that I didn't just exclusively spend my wrestling time watching every single IWA Japan match since. IWA Japan existed in its own bubble and yet they were out here having the same kind of body bruising, exclamation-inducing fights. Phil sought this show out when he found out Cactus/Kurisu happened on it, and I saw this intriguing Tarzan Goto interpromotional tag right before it on the video file and decided to just let it play through while I finished something up. 

That's when I fell in love all over again with IWA Japan. This whole tag was what we all seek in wrestling. Everybody was great. I watched it for Tarzan Goto - somehow the Biggest Miss from our corner of pro wrestling fandom, a man we all came around to late and can't explain how it happened - was as good as expected, but this was every person at their peak powers. Has Kendo Nagasaki always been this good? He's a monster here. Is he a monster everywhere? Have we missed on Dragon Master in the exact same way we missed on Goto? This is interpromotional invader shit and Kendo treats Goto and Gannosuke like a couple asshole outsiders, especially going after Gannosuke. Gannosuke is a guy I love, but this was a shitheel Gannosuke who is like a Jamie Dundee level opportunistic prick with a mustache who will run into the hardest clotheslines possible and circle like a buzzard when he smells blood. And there is blood, because they bust open Yuichi Tanigucihi - a guy less than 20 matches in his career who of course is one of those era psychos who is still wrestling in Japan and has like 2,000 matches - looks like a gigantic 12 year old and hits clotheslines like an angry Morishima, and when the match settles into Goto and Gannosuke getting real blood red heat from a rabid Korakuen crowd, we achieve nirvana. The brawl through the crowd was so charged and violent, Nagasaki passionately defends Taniguchi like grumpy murderer era Jumbo, and Goto is this piece of shit southern worker who stirs the pot the entire time, this incredible blend of Zbyszko and Bunkhouse Buck and Riki Choshu. These are the toughest guys ever built wrestling real strong style, nothing but headbutts and shoot clotheslines and Kendo Nagasaki throwing what look like heavy fucking tables without a single fuck given where they land. This is an IWA Japan blog now. 

PAS: My goodness what a discovery. This isn't as good as the famous FMW Texas Death Match, but it is pretty damn close, and is a match which basically has no profile at all. This actually starts like a standard tag match with Nagasaki taking young Gannosuke to the woodshed smacking him with hard forearms and stretching him on the mat. Goto and Taniguchi smack each other with hard clotheslines and headbutts as well, and it feels like a cool WAR heavweight stiff fest. Then it inevitably spills to the floor and all four guys start trying to brain each other with heavy wood tables and chair shots. Taniguchi looks like someone took a power drill to his face, and Goto and Nagasaki are in hog heaven fling furniture. Truly chaotic brawl, a ton of Moondog energy. As a community we have long since reevaluated Tarzan Goto and elevated him to the heights he deserves, is it time to reinvestigate Nagasaki?

Tarzan Goto/Mr. Gannosuke/Dennis Knight vs. Keisuke Yamada/Hiroshi Ono/Shoji Nakamaki IWA Japan 7/5/95 - GREAT

PAS: This was the same night of the all-timer tag we wrote about above, and was a hell of second act. This is basically just Goto and the boys mauling the white shirted IWA undercard kids. It started with Yamada and Ono doing some awkward but forceful dives, but their advantage was short, and Goto starts fucking people up. Hitting them with hard clotheslines, barbed wire board smashing, and even some attempted hammer murder. It is pretty one sided and ugly with a couple of moments of hope by the white t-shirt boys. The finish dragged it down a bit with a Cactus Jack run in, where he beats down Goto with offense that didn't look as good as anything else in the match.

ER: Tarzan Goto came out in his finer-than-Kawada robe for a tag match earlier in the evening and bloodied up the chubbiest Nagasaki trainee in IWA, smirking his way through a tag where people hated him, dropping elbows like Stan Hansen, letting Gannosuke take extra punishment while he leaned on the ropes, showing nothing but aloof disrespect...so of course he comes out for the main event and does it all over again. Big Dennis Knight is with them this time and there are barbed wire boards everywhere, and the FMW boys do nothing but slam and smash the blue jeans/white shirt IWA Japan doo wop gang into this barbed wire. Hilariously, Tarzan Goto draws real heat the entire time by avoiding most of the barbed wire entirely. Team FMW is throwing hooking clotheslines to necks and beating up the home town boys like an Unstudly Stable and I loved how the IWA boys kept fighting no matter how much of a losing battle it seemed like they were in. Just as Gannosuke hit a wicked piledriver on Taniguchi earlier in the night, Knight hits a wicked one here (being careful to not plop his butt down into the wire) and the IWA crowd HATES their Memphis bullshit. Somehow Cactus Jack is the worst guy on this entire card, and his involvement for the finish is the only weak part of this match, running in and hitting awful Hitman elbows off the middle buckle, the worst offense anyone hit the entire match. If you leave Cactus out of this and finish the match literally any way involving the people in the match, this is another classic. 

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Found Footage Friday: AOYAGI~! KOBAYASHI~! TARZAN~! SATANICO~! CHARRO II~!

Satanico vs El Charro II CMLL 10/19/03

This is a 13 minute match (2/3 falls), with an overzealous ref who ends two falls in dubious ways, finish that was clunky to say the least, and with a game tecnico who has certain issues of which I'll get to later, but it's still worth watching because the first half is an all time Satanico mauling and that's saying something. I don't know if Charro breaks his nose or what. The blood from the forehead after the mask tearing doesn't seem substantial but the center of his face is covered, and Satanico gives no mercy at all. The best part of this has him just repeatedly punching a seated Charro's head back into a chair over and over again. The primera ends as he ties the mask up and the ref DQs him. The instant reply between falls is literally just him tying the match to the ropes in slow motion. At one point in here the blood was so extensive, you had to wonder how Charro would even be able to see to come back.

The beating continues into the segunda until Satanico misses a corner charge. It's time for Charro's big comeback, with Satanico already down a fall. He takes Satanico's legs out with a double leg and you're expecting a submission. Instead he hits the ropes and I was picturing some big, impactful crushing revenge shot like a senton. Instead? Charro does the worm and hits an elbow drop. That's the match totally going off the rails. It still sort of works because there's an element of danger in just whether Satanico might get humiliated and lose two falls in this manner, but ultimately, instead, the ref DQs Charro for some reason I can't fathom and we get a back and forth tercera where Charro takes Satanico over in a clumsy sort of crucifix pin for what felt to me like an upset. Satanico just dismantling a guy with a white mask is one of the best things in lucha though and this match had plenty of that.

Masashi Aoyagi vs Kuniaki Kobayashi NJPW 6/9/92

MD: This was about what I wanted to be, an absolute war with a few narrative checkpoints to keep it honest and an inconclusive finish based on the idea that they weren't done fighting until the moment that they finally were. Kobayashi ambushed with a forearm and a DDT right at the start and the next few minutes were about Aoyagi working from underneath and getting cut off and brutalized. That included a capture suplex and some nasty, nasty headbutts in the corner. When he came back, it was with all of the wrath and violence that you'd expect, but a bit of interference he had to swipe at from the outside meant that Kobayashi could get back in it. From there, they just went at each other until the ref seemed to want to call a stoppage. It didn't work. It didn't even come close to working until by the end they were just throwing shots and DDTing each other and it was like the tide going back out to sea as they laid there and finally decided it was enough. Dawn had come. It was time to pick up the pieces, patch up the wounds, and prepare to do it all again the next night.

Masashi Aoyagi vs Tarzan Goto Shin-FMW 9/29/97-EPIC

MD: Well, this was nuts. Obviously, we're paying tribute to Aoyagi and Goto who both died fairly recently, and if you want to see them just put everything out there, this is one to watch. I have no idea why Goto came out to Ridin' High by Rosemary Butler but it was such a weird dissonance as he came down a ring full of barbed wire covered tables and it was all the more so post-match with blood and vicera everywhere. I can't imagine anyone was going to argue with him though.

This starts with a few minutes of Goto plastering Aoyagi on the floor with a chair and other objects, really bloodying that white gi up. The comeback, when it comes back in the ring, is five minutes of Aoyagi axe-kicking, clubbing, and biting Goto. It's back and forth from there, though with fairly clear, wire and table related transitions. It's bad enough that Aoyagi's broke a wire-laden table with Goto's back but then he followed it up with those absolutely brutal kicks; that sort of thing. Ultimately, Goto catches him on a spin wheel kick and then plants him over and over with killshots, Aoyagi kicking out time after time. When he finally finishes the job it's with something no one in the world would kick out off. Just a violent, bloody spectacle; you'll be left with the the grisly afterimages burnt into your eyes and with the dulcet power pop of Riding High stuck in your head.

PAS: This was grody and awesome, both of these guys are such awesome 90s wrestling characters. Goto with his greasy hair and mangled forehead and Aoyagi with his Johnny Unitas haircut and Gi. They just tear after each other, with Goto turning the white Gi red with chairs and a broken bottle, and Aoyagi flinging his hard kicks to the head and body and hurling the barbed wire boards. Goto was just brutalizing Aoyagi near the end, and the finish was gnarly. FMW really had a hell of special roster, with Onita and guys like this.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE AOYAGI

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Found Footage Friday: TOSHIAKI~! TARZAN~! KAWADA~! GOTO~! FUNK~! GILBERT~!

Toshiaki Kawada vs. Tarzan Goto AJPW 1/14/84

MD: This was Kawada's first win ever, after losing over two hundred matches. It's also one of the earliest All Japan handhelds that have ever popped up. It's a really good Goto performance on top of that, which is important as we want to celebrate the guy, even if this is an on-brand but off-key way to do so. He gave Kawada a little escape shine early, with Kawada bridging back and forth out of a headscissors and turning a fireman's carry into a victory roll before eating a back elbow off the ropes. After that, Goto really zones in on the arm, hanging on throughout escape attempts and then locking in a number of varied holds. He goes the extra mile too, flipping over to put on more torque, crashing down onto the arm with different elbow drops or body drops, running across the ring with an arm driver. I don't think a single person in the audience thought that Kawada was going to somehow pull out a win, banana peel or otherwise, right down to the finish where Goto lawn darts him across the ring only to go for it again and eat a backslide. Kawada hit his stuff cleanly and had fire when it mattered but this was very much Goto's show.

ER: I love our pro wrestling footage finders so much. Even more than them, I love the men who - nearly 40 years ago! - snuck cameras into house shows to document history they couldn't have known would be happening. As Matt pointed out, this was literally Kawada's first victory, coming after over 200 matches 15 months into his career. A hero showed up to a small show in Hokkaido on my 3rd birthday, with a camera that likely took a team of seven men to operate, likely had to be snuck into the building disguised as a large mechanical man, and without realizing the fascinating historical footnote that the opening match of the show would become. I mean, sure, this show ALSO had Jumbo Tsuruta vs. Steve Olsonoski so who's to say this show wouldn't have otherwise been historic. This match is fun, but definitely a house show opener from 1984. 

This was mostly a Tarzan mauling, but the finish they used didn't feel like a banana peel for Kawada. It's fun seeing Kawada get his arm worked over in a match. I mean, there is literally nothing about THIS Kawada that reads as the Kawada we all love. Since the 1984 handheld doesn't afford us a very good look at Kawada's face, for all I know this may as well have been some other guy with the same name, like that other Yuki Ishikawa who briefly tricks me into being excited about a modern Japanese wrestling match every couple of months. Tarzan works over Kawada's arm in fun ways, landing on it with his full weight repeatedly. I'm a big fan of the running Fujiwara takedown, Goto using his size to run and jump to the mat with that arm, and Kawada can't do anything but dive onto his stomach. The best spot of the match, and a move that someone today should definitely steal, is when Goto lifts Kawada up for an atomic drop, and then just throws him forward into a hard flat back landing. I've seen Akira Taue use that and variations of it, but it should make a comeback. It's a great move and played really well into the finish, with Kawada flipping out the back and getting a backslide. Had I just taken that empty pool bump and thought I was about to take another, I'd try to backflip my way out of it too. 

Toshiaki Kawada vs. Tarzan Goto AJPW 11/28/84

MD: Very similar match later in the year. Goto gave Kawada a little more early and he had a more dynamic comeback, including hitting one big leap off the top and the jumping, spinning back kick, but otherwise, it was mainly just night to see a lot of the armwork from the January match in better VQ. Goto threw a few more headbutts here too, and Kawada was more flippy, including an inexplicable flip/self-back bump over a dropdown during a rope-running sequence. He hit a nice senton off the ropes too but missed a second leap back off the top and got squashed by a top rope Goto splash. Again, Goto's known for wild FMW brawls but this was straightforward and sound. He worked with Kawada over 50 times, maybe as many as 70-something between 82 and 85 and watching these two back to back, you can only come to the conclusion that it helped in Kawada's early development.

ER: I was actually surprised how similar their touring match was 10 months along from the match above. It's also hilarious to me that Kawada basically spent 1984 getting his arm demolished every couple nights by Tarzan Goto. Goto doesn't pull his weight on anything. Every one of his falling headbutts looked like him throwing the flat of his forehead as hard as he could onto Kawada, and every time he jumped on or splashed Kawada's arm it looked like a guy landing as hard as he could onto an arm. Kawada really looked like he was aping same-era Misawa here, with very similar movements and some things I've never seen Kawada do, but HAVE seen Misawa do. When he did a front flip to dodge a Goto dropdown, that sealed it. Kawada had added a couple bits of offense in the intervening 10 months, even if the additions didn't actually look that good. After hitting his (Misawa-like) crossbody, he hit a real high leaping elbowdrop (that looked more like a big back bump and not something that would hurt Goto) and a high senton that sure looked like it would land heavy but just kind of lightly bounced right off Tarzan's big torso. If Kawada bounced off of Goto's torso with a light landing, then Goto landed his big splash off the top the exact opposite. As with a lot of his other offense, Goto looked like he was trying to splash Kawada as hard as humanly possible. The All Japan training system during this era is undeniable, but I would have been the guy watching Kawada for his first few years and just Not Seeing It. 

Terry Funk vs. Doug Gilbert SCW 5/14/05

MD: I'd like you to imagine what a Funk vs. Gilbert match would look like in 2005. Done? Hey, you imagined this match! Good job. It's exactly what you'd expect, which is a good thing. Funk wanted the mic to start and that let Gilbert ambush him. Blood came early. The beating happened all around the ringside area. There was a tire tool and a box cutter and the ringside table. Gilbert's punches were good. He hit a piledriver on a chair back in the ring and then got the mic and started proclaiming him king of Nashville. Funk came back. There were revenge bits with the table. Funk got tossed into chairs and chucked them up at Gilbert from the ground in a pretty amazing visual. It all ended up back in the ring with Funk DDTing Gilbert, his crony, the ref, his valet, onto chairs. And it ended with a fireball and a second ref counting the ring. All in about ten minutes. Nothing particularly surprised me though the flying chairs were something and the fireball was quite impressive, but I didn't want to be surprised. I wanted to watch Terry Funk and Doug Gilbert walk, brawl, and bleed for ten minutes and I got my wish.

ER: Yep, this is the exact match you would want to see if you paid money to see Terry Funk vs. Doug Gilbert in 2005. If you were paying for this match, you'd go home thinking you got a better match than you were expecting. Funk worked matches for another 10 years after this, but we're talking about 25 matches over the next 10 years. You can tell Funk's knees are so beyond shot that they look like a road sign on a desolate Canadian highway. But the best parts of this play to both men's strengths, and for Gilbert that meant punches. This was one of the best Dougie punching matches I have seen, as I'm not sure I've seen a match where he's thrown better ones. He stands right on Funk's neck and throws nothing but great right hands, shaking his fist out after the best ones (any wrestler who does that is automatically Top 20 in the world), even gives us a nice fistdrop, sliding in on his knees as Funk is rolling out of the ring. Funk gets busted open from punches and Dougie opens him up further with a fucking BOX CUTTER. Funk clearly has a hard time getting to his feet whenever he is on his back, so most of his bumps are the Terry "fall into the ropes and tilt amusingly onto the apron and then down onto my feet on the floor" variety, but he WILL get cut open with a fucking box cutter. 

When Funk finally takes over, we see the other side of Doug Gilbert, which is that of a man who takes weapons shots like The Miz. Funk was not throwing concussion level chair shots, but Gilbert's arms were positioned so far in front of his face that I can only assume he has a severe folding chair allergy the way he was avoiding them. Gilbert's "I'll Dish It, But Can't/Won't Take It" attitude is a great aspect to his heel persona, and even when Funk is bashing Gilbert's head on a table, I'm not sure Dougie's head came even two feet away from that table. I thought Gilbert was just smacking his hands repeatedly on the table, because his head was so far away from the surface that it didn't even register what move was supposed to be happening. More power to Doug Gilbert for protecting his frontal lobe, but goddamn man you just opened up a 60 year old man, at least make some of his shit look good. The match ending bullshit was excellent, with Funk laying out everyone in sight with really great DDTs before not shielding his face IN THE LEAST from a Gilbert fireball. Terry Funk has to be one of the most selfless wrestlers in history. Can you imagine wrestling a guy who leans away from almost every serious shot you threw, all match, and then still just letting that dude relief you of your eyebrows? Only Terry. 

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New Footage Friday: RAVE~! DANIELSON~! MATTHEWS~ J-ROD~! LEATHERFACE~! GOTO~! COLLYER~! YONE~! RASTAMAN~! TAKESHI ONO!!!!

Leatherface vs Tarzan Goto IWA 3/1/96

MD: Really enjoyable superheavyweight collision from what we could see. We couldn't see everything, but you could fill in the blanks easily enough. This was a straightforward battle, not complicated rocket science. These guys hit like a ton of bricks, with Leatherface using his girth to bully Goto around the ring and Goto using his strength to put a stop to it. We could see things best when they were in two of the corners, but even in missing the impacts on a lot of Goto's elbow drops, you could just tell how intense the impact would be from the set up and drop off screen. He spent a good chunk of the match trying to contain Leatherface since he could monstrously swarm back at any point but was finally able to end it when he landed a few headbutts and controlled the action long enough to launch a clear whip for the clothesline. I wish we could see a bit more of it but what we could see was good stuff.

ER: Some random IWA Japan main event from 25 years pops up featuring another feather in the cap for Tarzan Goto, I'm cool watching the match from the POV of a man hiding underneath chairs while secretly recording pro wrestling. What defines a hero, anyway? This is a testament to how powerful a gas tank Goto had, as there's a lot packed into this 13 minute match and all of it is very active. He hits hard with punches and shoulderblocks, and manages to make every lariat hit harder than the last (they all look finisher worthy). Goto is so active, constantly leaping onto Leatherface's body, dropping heavy horizontal elbowdrops (Goto had the finest elbowdrop form of any native in Japanese wrestling), just ATTACKING Leatherface. And I laugh, thinking of this burly solid Japanese man in a Tarzan singlet working over Leatherface's leg in the backwoods of Texas. 

Rick Patterson is such a presence as Leatherface, and I'm sure we all have early tape trader memories of getting a death match comp and seeing this giant guy named Leatherface running through a gymnasium with a chainsaw. Goto's legwork is pretty violent, and as this is an untaped house show we really get to see how much of a Japanese Finlay he was. Every time he jumped on Leatherface's leg it looked nasty, and while Leatherface is huge, Goto has lariats strong enough to sent him flying over the top to the floor. Leatherface has a cool out of control reckless energy, like how he sends his legs flying as he bumps for those lariats or how he throws the sloppiest missile dropkick...except it's a 6'6 350 lb. man in a mask and wig and jeans and apron attempting to throw a missile dropkick. Goto saves some real dynamite for the finishing stretch, including an insane brainbuster (crazy to even try one on a guy this big). Awesome, weird find.

PAS: The parts of this we saw were pretty dope, just a pair of big corn fed guys pounding on each other. Goto had such certainty and force with everything he did. I loved his little uppercuts, such a great strike, and Leatherface's big looping rights looked great too. I wish we could have seen some of the crowd brawling, I imagine it would have been awesome. Both Goto suplexes looked killer, as did Leatherfaces's awkward tumbling top rope drop kick. I love that this finished with a hooking lariat. Goto threw great ones, and that is the kind of thing that would even drop a giant manifestation of evil. 

Chad Collyer/Rastaman vs. Takeshi Ono/Mohammed Yone BattlArts 6/3/00

PAS: Chad Collyer has been uploading a bunch of cool handhelds from his personal collection. We covered a couple of Danielson matches a while back, and he just dropped another big batch. This is a BattlArts tag which is something we are of course going to jump on. Takeshi Ono is an all time great wrestler with a very limited tape footprint, so new Ono is a celebration. I thought most of this match was a bit meandering, but like most BattlArts tags it ended with a big showdown. This was Rastaman versus Ono and it was pretty damn great. Takeshi unloads the kitchen sink on Rastaman and it is a deep sink. He turns him all around, landing a crazy combo in the corner, a big straight right hand and a furious Octopus attempt. Rasta is so much bigger and he is able to eat all of that, then land a decapitating lariat and an armbar for the tap. This wasn't much up until the finish, but a heck of a finish. 

MD: This took a little bit to get going but became a nice varied sprint once it did. I liked Collyer taking Yone's shots and feeding into Ono's grappling and unveiling a really nice series of leglocks from a number of different entry points. Rastaman was electric whenever he was in there, just a big force that'd either hit something interesting or take something interesting, until the end when Ono looked positively heroic against him, right up until he didn't. 

ER: Active 10 minute tag with everyone throwing stiff strikes and taking bumps on a hard mat. This was a fun showcase for Rastaman, as you get some lumbering presence with actual cool spots. He press slams Ono back into the ring, hits a wild kick combo in the corner that ends with a spinkick across Yone's jaw, he takes some complicated Ono combos and levels him with a lariat, then tries to break Ono's arm in half with the sick trapped neck armbar finish. Collyer was good at absorbing heavy kicks from the Batt duo, with Yone especially going after Collyer's ribs with heavy kicks and dropping him with hard bodyslams. It's a little formless, but that doesn't really matter when guys are running in making up spinning heel kicks on the fly. Cool look into what was happening on some post peak Batt house shows, with regulars still working hard and odd style clash gaijin throwing a wrench into things. 

Bryan Danielson vs. Jimmy Rave vs. Kyle Matthews vs. J-Rod RPW 7/31/10

MD: Danielson was, in some ways, in the 80s Flair role here. The world revolved around him even though local issues were at play. His presence allowed the promotion to drive them forward. Rave was the TV champ. J-Rod was his biggest challenger. Matthews was his protege. The first two thirds were good with the highlights being the more story-focused work, when Rave and Matthews both ended up in the ring against each other, for instance, or the cracks of miscommunication between them. J-Rod got solid rub just for being there and for outlasting Rave. The match really picked up when it was just Danielson vs Matthews though. Matthews was still a young lion here and this felt like the sort of match that would make him, at least in the territory if not in the wider community. Danielson switched gears when it was just the two of them and went more aggressive and almost heelish, dismantling the arm. It was pretty vicious, masterful stuff, with Matthews having to fight back at a severe disadvantage, but Danielson was super giving in his role, letting him escape from the Cattle Mutilation and giving him not just hope spots but some very good and meaningful nearfalls as well, as well as taking a huge dive. The last ten minutes were an excellent, star-making exercise from both Danielson and a very game Matthews.

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New Footage Friday: Tarzan Goto, Sabu, Mr. Hughes, Steiners, Goldust, Curry Man

Big Titan/The Gladiator/Dr. Hannibal/Ricky Fuji/Attila the Hun vs. Tarzan Goto/Grigory Verichev/Sambo Asako/Sabu FMW 2/19/93

MD: This is part of a ten disc FMW HH set that's recently been unearthed by everyone's pal Pete F. Of it, only one disc seems to have been out there before. We put our heads together quickly and this was the first match that jumped out.

After watching it, I told Phil that we definitely needed to share it with the world but that I wasn't sure we could find anything intelligent to say about it. That said, if anyone can, it's probably Eric.

It's chaos. Given the angle the quality, you don't quite get the blood you'd expect, but you do get the violence. In a lot of ways, this is a Goto and Sabu showcase with Titan and Gladiator throwing everyone around dangerously and that's absolutely, 100% what you want it to be. I have no idea who some of the others even are. Attila the Hun, for instance, comes in solely to get gloriously demolished by Goto at the start of the match. The most horrifying and breathtaking moment of all of this isn't the wire at all but Sabu barely getting around on a Titan powerbomb, turning it into a rana at the last moment.

Post match goes on and on with meandering violence, only some of which caught on tape. Sabu had turned on Goto and everyone pretty much ends up fighting everyone else. There is a Sabu vs Goto match that follows this (I assume) on tape, and I definitely feel a need to check that out. I imagine we're going to get a ton of great Goto moments out of this footage.

ER: Oh man this match owns. It's quite possibly the most of every single thing you could possibly want in pro wrestling: A dangerous stipulation, a crowded ring, fat guys, tall guys with bad hair, a Russian judo medalist in a gi, a phony medical practitioner, a descendant of a tribal leader who invaded Italy (and now he's invading Japan!), stiff moves, dangerous moves, basically everything. This whole match is like the Royal Rumbles my childhood friend Eric O. and I used to have, where we would do separate entrances as every single guy, the match constantly being interrupted so one of us could run down the stairs and back up, constantly entering as someone new. This is one of the greatest Tarzan Goto performances ever. How were all of us tape traders so obsessed with unwatchable quality Sabu comps, while we took 20 years to realize that we should have been making and distributing Tarzan Goto comps? I counted 22 of the stiffest lariats you've ever seen, many of them coming from Goto (Goto threw so many brutal southpaw lariats that my left rotator cuff was sore after watching this), but several from Titan and Gladiator that would typically wind up with Sabu getting dumped on his head. Goto was a Tazmanian Devil throughout the briskly paced and chaotic match, always being in the center of something, throwing almost nothing more than those brutal lariats and his jaw breaking right hands.

We get one of the best and most unexpected ref bumps, as Goto rears back to slug someone and elbows the referee in the face, the ref taking a spectacular flipping bump backwards near the barbed wire ropes. Titan and Awesome make it their mission to hit increasingly dangerous powerbombs on every single person in the match, and their mission was successful. I thought for sure Sabu was going to get spiked right on the top of his head, the angle he was coming down at was looking murderous, but he rana'd Titan at what had to be the last possible inch to do so. Sambo Asako was wearing his aquamarine singlet/tights, stretched tight over that round build. Nobody wants camo pants Asako, they want this plump little blueberry. In a match with 10 men and no ropes we actually get a powder in the eyes finish and a double cross, then everyone swarms the ring. Far and away the best part of the swarm was Titan and Gladiator getting back in the ring. The video quality being handheld from 1993, we can't really see the barbed wire ropes. So seeing Gladiator and Titan hop to the ring apron and high step over what appears to me nothing just makes them look like they're on their way to interview at the Ministry of Silly Walks. Literally every single thing about this match was perfect.

PAS: This was a batch of fun, goddam is Tarzan Goto a monster in this. I loved him just obliterating Atilla the Hun in the opening fall, just punking this goof out, and he continued to just cracking people with stiff lariats and great punches. I also dug Gladiator and Big Titan as this roided out mulleted team of goofs. Really felt like they should have been ECW's Road Warriors. Poor Verichev. This has to be a bit of a rock bottom moment, big fall from the olympic medal platform to getting punched in the face by Mike Awesome in a some gym in Japan. This was the right kind of barbed wire match, where the wire was part of the crazy brawl rather then the focus of the match, some nice bumps into the wire, but not a lot of carving.. Sabu was fun too, he mostly threw punches and rana's but had that nutso aura which made him such a phenom. Nifty discovery.

Barbarian/Mr. Hughes vs. The Steiners ASW 9/3/96

PAS:  Wow, what a blast this was. Total big boy spotfest. No reason for all four of these guys to work this hard on a random North Carolina indy show. Everyone knows how great the Stieners and the Barbarian are, but Mr. Hughes was a beast in this, just a bump machine. He misses a top rope splash, takes a Pat Tanaka level backdrop, and gets dumped on his head with Steiner suplexes and a the Frankenstiener. His offense looked good too, he had a great Buzz Sawyer style powerslam (as did the Barbarian, weirdly Rick Steiner didn't) and a dope dropkick. Steiners hit a bunch of their big throws, and Rick threw some great clotheslines. Finish was completely bonkers, Barbarian put Scott on a table on the floor, and misses a top rope headbutt to the floor and just splinters the table, completely insane bump, as crazy as any Sabu or Tommy Dreamer table bumps in ECW prime. If this had been on WCWSN or a WCW PPV it would have been a legendary match.

ER: My word what a match! You know who was really great in 1996? Mr. Hughes, apparently! Mr. Hughes is not somebody who I've ever had much of an opinion on, good or bad. I guess my only opinion up until now was "It was kind of weird when he showed up for a month in 1999 WWE." But here he looked like my favorite wrestler. He's still really big here (I remember him being slimmer when he showed up in WWE, in the same way Bossman was slimmer when he came back that year) but incredibly fast and agile. "Am I going to need to go on a Mr. Hughes deep dive?" he asked excitedly. Hughes takes a few armdrags from Scott really fast, does a super fast rope running exchange, bumps huge over the top to the floor, hits a high dropkick, a gorgeous classic clothesline (you know, where the power is in you whipping them into the ropes and let them run neck first into your arm), takes maybe the highest back bump I've ever seen from a man his size, hits a fantastic powerslam on Scott, misses a giant splash off the top...I mean Mr. Hughes was just everything I would want a wrestler to be in this match, with the added bonus being that he looks sharp as hell in his duds and wears sunglasses.

You know who else was great in 1996? Everybody else here. Rick was awesome, throwing Hughes high by the ankles with that big back drop, comes in with this fiery hot tag with mean punches to Barbarian's forehead, runs HARD through Barb/Hughes with a double lariat, really looked like a long haul trucker getting super strength from rest stop crank. Scott throws a couple big suplexes (getting Barbarian dangerously vertical on and overhead throw) and snaps off an all time great Frankensteiner on Hughes down the stretch run (and damn does Hughes take a great fast and tumbling bump off it). Barbarian is great all around here, and takes the most unexpectedly dangerous and spectacular bump of the match, something that nobody attending this show expected they would see, when he flies from the top rope to the floor, through a table, missing a splash as Scott rolls out of the way, and gets pinned. Phil is completely right that if that match had been on any WWF/WCW TV or PPV, it would be a super talked about match in our circles long before now. If this match had happened exactly the same this year, it would rank highly on ours and others' MOTY List. Mr.freaking Hughes baby.

Goldust vs. Curry Man 1PW 10/14/06

ER: This isn't too long after Goldust's 4th WWE stint (that popular stint where he was Snitsky's tag partner), so he was still closer to prime time shape and hadn't yet bulked up to Black Reign superheavyweight status. This was a big event with a large indy crowd, and a lot of indy names scattered throughout the card (including Samoa Joe in a six man for some reason, and Smothers/Hamrick flown over to be in a tag trios), and the crowd is into the act here. I'm not 18 any longer, so Curry Man is no longer my flavor, and we get a lot of comedy including a long bit with everyone (ref included) trying to stomp feet. Not really sure I can get past the ref no selling having both of his feet stomped. Mainly because seeing Goldust stomp feet and then limp around after getting his foot stomped, made me want to see someone (Dustin Rhodes-level worker or better) work an entire match around one foot stomp. I know one of these guys can do it. Either stomp someone's foot early and then work over that foot, or get their own foot stomped and then limp through a match. I want a stubbed toe sell; that stubbed toe pain that is the worst pain you can imagine for one 2 second burst. Later the ref gets involved again by leaping in at the last moment to prevent Goldust from hitting Shattered Dreams, taking a leg kick in the process and delivering one as a receipt. If the referee needed to be involved in this, that at least felt like a more organic way to involve him. We get a lot of my favorite Dustin spots - one which I feel doesn't get brought up enough - which is his missed crossbody that sends him tumbling to the floor. It always looks fantastic, and isn't something he does in every match so you aren't exactly expecting it. Curry Man/Daniels is fine. You know what you're getting with him. His moonsault looked like something that deserved to be a nearfall. But it also felt like Dustin could have had this match with anybody.

MD: A year or two back I went out of my way to specifically look for Dustin-in-the-Wilderness matches. Dustin is almost always worth watching because despite the gimmick, he brings such pure pro-wrestling skills. This isn't too far off from the Muta/Tajiri vs. Goldustin/Hakushi match for instance. One thing I came across was a three minute fancam highlight reel of this, posted a week after the match happened.

In a lot of ways it's like trailers today. It had a lot of the "good stuff," some very fun comedy in a setting where you rarely saw Dustin, 00s UK Indy. I'm glad the whole match has showed up but I did get a sense that I'd already seen a lot of that "good stuff." That said, this is still worth seeing for the novelty. Daniels is a guy who's been precision execution but not always precision emotion, but he's unleashed and fully committed and emotive as Curry Man even if he leaves some of that execution at the door. They work the first part of this as a symmetry driven comedy match. Dustin, being Dustin, works the second half from underneath, getting the crowd honestly behind him and buying into his comebacks. He's one of the few people who in 2018 can still get people to do so and this crowd was even more game for it than their decade-later successors. That he was able to work both elements in the same match, in a strange place, with a unique opponent is just more of the gospel of how great he is and was.

PAS: I am with both guys, this was a Dustin showcase against a game but generic opponent. I never bought Curry Man as a character, it was always Daniels signature crisp athleticism with some colorless comedy spots thrown in. Still Goldust working shtick leading into a more serious match is going to work with anyone. Dustin had great uppercuts, hit his awesome missed bodypress spot and worked a fun shtick around the Shattered Dreams with the ref. Basically a fun syndie match, but Dustin is one of the great Syndie match workers off all time.

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Dick Togo's Out Here By Himself, Ask Steve Jobs Wealth Don't Buy Health

Dick Togo/Sho Funaki/Men's Teioh vs. Masashi Aoyagi/Azteca/Tarzan Goto Indy World 7/22/98 - EPIC

PAS: Wild bit of violence which starts crazy and gets nuttier. Opener has Goto choking Wally Yamaguchi (Kaentai are in full WWE gear) and Togo comes out of no where to wipe him out with a dive. Goto is a rampaging beast in this though, hurling Togo through chair, busting him open, wasting him with clotheslines, just kicking his ass. We get some nice karate offense from Aoyagi, but this was basically a Goto vs. Togo singles battle with cameos from the rest. It is a trip to see Togo, a guy who normally is a dominant bully, play the tiny underdog. Man is he great at it too, Togo is such a versatile talent. Finish is awesome, Goto ties Togo to the ringpost by his throat with the ref's belt and and breaks a beer bottle. Aoyagi decides he didn't sign on for a murder, and makes the save, allowing Togo and crew to take out Azteca. I really need to get my hands on the Goto vs. Aoyagi war that this clearly sets up. Props to Jetlag for finding this, it was a blast.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE DICK TOGO

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE MASASHI AOYAGI 

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Dan Severn Locks Your Daddy Out of Doors

Dan Severn vs. Tarzan Goto IWA Japan King of the Death Matches 8/20/95 - EPIC

ER: What a truly legendary, violent, badass match. The IWA Japan King of the Death Matches was one of the key shows most tape traders ever traded for (that and a 6 hour Sabu comp where the quality was so bad that half the thing was blue screen), and this was probably one of the most ignored matches on that show. We were allured by explosions and barbed wire and somehow missed two meaty guys beating the shit out of each other. This is a straight up fight. Part of the time it looks like they're legit trying to get the other to quit, just pummeling each other on the mat, choking each other, making us buy into this hatred. Goto throws a big lariat, gets busted open immediately (possibly from his own headbutt), spills to the floor and starts grabbing for chairs. Severn realizes what kind of fight this is going to be and doesn't seem all that hesitant to join him in weaponry. Goto finds a bottle and busts it on a ring post, swinging it at Severn who blocks it with a chair. They spill into the crowd over the railing, in a kind of way that looks like two men who weren't planning on spilling over the railing. By the time the cameras catch up to them they're in the middle of a packed Kawasaki Stadium, rolling on the floor and stiffing the hell out of each other. Goto beats Severn with chairs and buries him in them, and when the camera cuts back to Severn he's rising out of the chairs and goes insane, throwing chairs into the ring at Goto, and then they fight with chairs. Severn tosses him with throws, Goto drops him with a nasty lariat and pancake piledriver, and Severn starts throwing even more. This is so vicious, these two just kill each other. Finish is boss as all hell, with Severn dumping Goto with a German and  working for a choke. He sinks it in and Goto is gushing blood, covering his whole face while Severn's choke sinks in deeper. Goto passes out and it's not quite over, as Severn leaves victorious but Goto and his boys get in the ring and talk trash. You know his boys are legit too, because one looks like a hesher who got separated from his ride at an all day metal festival, and the other is wearing a tank top that is longer than his shorts. This is the greatest.

PAS: Yeah this was an absolute classic, I remember everyone thought this was a miracle match back in the day, because people thought Severn wasn't very good and Goto wasn't very good (I used to call him Tarzan Scroto) but of course everyone was wrong and both guys rule, so it isn't that shocking that this was awesome.  Goto has these amazing headbuts which he aims right at Severn's temple, they are probably pretty safe but they look very unsafe. Loved Goto trying to wrestle Severn, getting sliced open by Severn's elbows and reverting to the FMW in him. Severn blocking the broken bottle with a chair shot is one of my favorite weapon spots maybe ever. Severn losing it at the chair shots and furiously hurling chairs at the ring really feels like something you would see in an actual out of control bar fight. The final choke was so nasty and the visual of Goto spraying blood out of his head while he passed out was cinematic. Goto immediately getting up and rushing Severn was great too, too bad we never got a rematch because it felt like the start of an epic feud.


COMPLETE & ACCURATE DAN SEVERN

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THE MOTHERFUCKING INTERNET: Yume Factory v. Shin FMW

Tarzan Goto/Ryo Miyake vs. Shinichi Nakano/Masayoshi Motegi WDF 7/16/1997

PAS: What a sleaze soaked pleasure this match was, the wrestling equivalent of eating a giant roadhouse bacon cheeseburger. Goto is a treasure in this, I can't believe I ever used to diss this dude. He basically works this as a fat grotesque Tenryu as he beats the bricks off of Motegi with chair edges, meaty punches right to the nose and thick headbuts. Motegi bleeds a ton and was pretty great as a fired up babyface, by far the best I have seen him look. Nakano and Miyake were really fun as the secondary dudes too, they would tag in and slap the shit out of who ever was in the ring. I really miss this kind of dirtbag Puro indy, now all Japanese indies seem to be about telling jokes, there was nothing funny about this match at all. 

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All Time MOTY List Head to Head: Misawa v. Kawada V. WAR v. FMW

Atsushi Onita/Tarzan Goto v. Genichiro Tenryu/Ashura Hara (WAR 3/2/94)

PAS: Epic match with everyone playing their parts perfectly. Onita replaces his normally psychotic masochistic hurling of his body into barbed wire, with psychotically and mascochistically allowing himself to be toe kicked in the temple by Tenryu and shoot headbutted by Hara. Tenryu is a mean nasty prick roaming around the beginning of this match unloading on both guys. Both Goto and Hara are awesome as the bruiser tag partners whose job is to beat on the opposing teams big hitter. Hara brutalizes Onita early with headbutts busting him open, while Goto cracked Tenryu with lariats, superfly splashes and a a face first piledriver on the table. Then they clear out and let the two megastars match up. The finishing run may not have been the smoothest wrestling I have seen, but holy shit are Tenryu and Onita pair of charismatic motherfuckers who know how to draw you in a match. Tenryu's selling was brilliant here, at about the ten minute mark of the match he gets caught with a big DDT from Onita, and he is never able to shake off that shot. He goes back on offense, hits some big moves, but he has this awesome thousand yard stare even when he is firing back. When he finally goes down, it is a huge monster deal, but I buy Onita getting the win, even without explosions. The main event interpromotional WAR tag is one of the greatest thing in wrestling history.

ER: This was so great, and so different than what I was expecting! FMW coming into WAR's turf, yet Goto is the never say die bullied babyface, Onita makes puppy dog eyes, and Tenryu is the guy wandering around being a stoic asshole. I love this match though. It's so messy, really not pretty, but builds so cleanly and satisfyingly. Goto and Hara are the bulldogs being sicced on the opposing side's big dog, and the way we get there is classic. Stiff headbutts and lariats to the side of everybody's neck ensue, and Tenryu kicks Onita in the eye and forehead a dozen or more times. It's fairly routine in the beginning, until Goto has the nerve to break up a pin, and then Tenryu flips out on him, tosses him to the floor, and slaps and chops him into a pile. And it's a tasty moment, because Tenryu flying off the handle and getting so distracted by Goto doing his job leaves things wide open for Onita to recover a bit and DDT Tenryu as he gets back from jumping Goto. Just as Rick Rude sells an atomic drop finer than any other man before or since, Tenryu has always done the same glory to DDTs and piledrivers. His body always curls up a little as one hand holds his neck and the other focuses on the hot pain on top of his head. He eats another, manages to kick out, and also manages to tag Hara in. And brother, Goto does NOT forget about that beating that Tenryu gave him for saving Onita. As Onita is tangling with Hara, Goto storms into Tenryu's dwelling and blasts him with a chair, and spends the rest of the match making Tenryu pay for that early extra aggression. He really targets Tenryu and leaves him softened up for Onita. That piledriver slam on the table was ridiculous. I never even considered that the FMW boys might pull this off, but the longer this went I kept thinking "man a WAR comeback at this point would be just silly!" but that Onita pin was still super shocking.

Misawa v Kawada Review

PAS: Verdict, I loved this, WAR inter promotional tag is a style which resonates way more with me then All Japan main event puro classic. Still Misawa v. Kawada is the apex of that style, while this is an awesome interpromotional potato WAR, but a step below the incandescent stuff between WAR and NJ. 6/3/94 by a hair

ER: This match felt really unique, with some great strategy and several little stories running throughout. It's messiness was part of its shaggy charm, but it was also going up against something trimmed of fat and immaculately executed. So very different. But 6/3/94 is the peak of its own style, whereas we have seen better interpromotional wars (basically all of which I love), and I have to give respect to the king. 6/3/94 wins again.

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Until There's a Kurisu...

The joy of Kurisu, a man with a legit long career in both New Japan and All Japan, he was around during the start of FMW, during an important year of WAR, and trained guys like Koji Kanemoto. He's also a guy I don't believe I've seen footage of before the age of 40. Kurisu exists as this perpetually middle aged Japanese Randy Marsh, whose interests include chair shots and shoot kicking people in the face. Until There's a Kurisu is a foundation dedicated to raising awareness of the pain caused by chair edges to the back of heads.

Kurisu vs. Shoji Akiyoshi (FMW 12/10/89)

Good grief, Kurisu. I think we all use the words "destroy" or "nasty" or similarly animated words to describe wild moments in the wrestling that we watch. But this match probably belongs in its own category. Because it's basically just Kurisu kicking rookie year Jado in the face for a few minutes until he's actually knocked out. Now, there is other stuff. It's not some weird snuff film where a stationary camera just zooms in on a man's face as you watch life drain from his eyes. There is a competitive (sort of) nature to it. But no matter what happens, it always comes back to Jado getting kicking in the face. This is the type of desultory beating that could really turn somebody into a vengeful psychopath, something that could really alter you. You can picture Jado visiting elderly Kurisu like Vito Corleone visiting Don Ciccio. So yeah, Kurisu kicks face, and as Akiyoshi is selling being kicked in the face he gets kicked more in the face. He finally escapes to the floor, which just leads to Kurisu getting on the apron and kicking him in the face, pre-dating Trevor Lee by 25 years. Then he grabs a chair and literally just hits Akiyoshi as hard as he can with it, several times, and kind of leaves him for dead. Back in the ring, though, Kurisu gives him a little comeback. Akiyoshi locks on a crab and Kurisu actually sells his back nicely for him. Akiyoshi goes up for a missile dropkick (inexplicably going to the turnbuckle farthest away from Kurisu) and eventually drops him. But then Kurisu has had quite enough of that and goes right back to kicking face, with the final kick catching Akiyoshi right under the chin and legit turning off the lights. The craziest thing about it is Kurisu goes to pick him up for more of an ass beating, realizes immediately that he is picking up a corpse, and then makes a face like "oh yeah, that makes sense!" and pins him. The screen freezes and fades to black and white, and I was half expecting to see a "In Memoriam" graphic pop up for Akiyoshi. He certainly earned his long career with this one.

Kurisu vs. Jang Yong Wow (FMW 1/7/90)

Kurisu against a karate guy, in the opening round of a tournament. "Japanese indy scum vs. Karate guy" is pretty much a guaranteed source of pro wrestling joy, as I imagine almost all of the scenarios involved some guy from a local dojo offered money to fake wrestle once, and the person he's wrestling eventually flips the script and goes off page on him. And that's what happens. Wow throws some spin kicks in the 1st round, 2nd round is Kurisu being Kurisu: throwing the nastiest unprotected chairshots to an unsuspecting Wow (his reaction made it seem like he knew Kurisu would be hitting him with a chair, but something tells me the shots were explained differently to him than the ones he got blasted with) and then back in the ring he allows himself to be dumped on his head with a Saito suplex and lies there while Kurisu puts him in a half crab. This was clipped to hell, and the match never had that wrestler vs. karate guy moment where the karate guy realizes he's being fucked with, instead Wow just kinda rolled over and played ball. But damn those chair shots.

Kurisu vs. Matsunaga (FMW 1/7/90)

I wonder how the transition happened, when Matsunaga went from normal karate guy to crazy deathmatch guy. Is it like prostitution? You're looking for a way to make some quick money one summer, and the money turns out to be WAY better than you anticipated, and then pretty soon you're doing it full time, and then the drug use kicks in, and eventually some long haul trucker buries you out on Long Island Sound and a jogger finds you a year later. The death match money likely doesn't come close to a night of hooking, but it's somehow less dangerous. But I really am wondering if one day you're a karate guy and then they convince you to let Kurisu hit you with a chair and then a week later you're in a piranha tank with your gi hung neatly in your locker. If you had never seen 90s Matsunaga you wouldn't have given him a second thought in this match. He was very much a karate guy who didn't look like he knew pro wrestling. And he was clearly told the same thing Jang Yong Wow was told in the first match: "Throw some pulled kicks throughout the 1st round, then in the 2nd at some point Kurisu will hit you with a chair." I am operating under the assumption that they expected the chairshots because it looked like they were waiting and bracing themselves to be hit by a chair. Kurisu even makes them wait a little too long. But yeah, Kurisu eats some nice low kicks eventually catches a kick and kind of muscles Matsunaga over the top to the floor. And then you see it: Matsunaga lying on his stomach, knowing that this is when he gets hit with a chair. And Kurisu finds a chair, and literally walks around Matsunaga's body, craning his neck in to look for the most painful angle bounce a chair off him. And he finds it. Kurisu ends up teeing off golf style with the edge of a chair to Matsunaga's head, then gives him a few shots to the body....then grabs a couple more chairs and gives him a few more shots, and then rolls in for the count out victory. If I had to guess, Matsunaga knew "take a chairshot, get counted out". Something tells me he was not told there would be 14 chairshots.

Kurisu vs. Tarzan Goto (FMW 1/7/90)

This is the finals of FMW's weird karate fighter tournament, with all the lumpy scuzzy indy guys advancing. Goto comes into this with his ribs wrapped and his mullet all wooly and fluffed, and wouldn't you know it, Kurisu goes after Goto's ribs. Goto punches him out of the ring to start and then goes up for a dive off the top, and Kurisu ole's him right into the floor. Kurisu grabs a chair and begins doing his signature move, that being "hit opponents' tender spots with a chair at a violent angle, repeat". And that's the story of the match. Kurisu targets the ribs, kneeling on them, jamming his fists into them, at one point he is literally just leaning on Goto's taped up area. They also find plenty of time to headbutt each other. We get tons of moments of these two just looking each other in the eyes and clonking heads in painful ways, until Kurisu keeps deciding he's had enough of Goto's giant dome and goes back to kicking him in the ribs. Goto doesn't last long, whole match goes maybe 8 minutes. These kinds of matches can't go too long as they were just out there taking tons of shots to the head. If this was booked to go 20 they'd both be vegetables by the end. But it's definitely a mistake to go into a Kurisu match with something taped up. It would be like me walking through the Richmond BART station asking if anybody has any change for all of my hundreds. Onita comes out afterwards and he and Kurisu go at it, with Kurisu leaping at him off the apron with a chair. We get a bunch of still photos progressing the action, as though Chris Marker suddenly decided to make a poetic garbage wrestling documentary. And then I've never wanted to know how to speak Japanese more, as Onita cuts an insane, passionate crying promo backstage, just sitting there in his blue tiny trunks with belly bulging in white tank top, hunched over awkwardly, bleeding, and passionately crying. This is the kind of promo that can go viral. GIFs of his plaintive eyes can easily be inserted into any conversation thread. Crying Onita can become our Crying Jordan. Crying Onita has always been our Crying Jordan.

Kurisu vs. Onita (Barbed Wire Board Match, FMW 2/12/90)

I really liked this, but it's the type of match that I don't really think would play today due to the desensitization of death match culture. This is before the death match boom, and you don't get any guys taking stunt falls into elaborate weapon structures here. Instead, you get two men not at all dressed for a death match, actively trying to avoid falling into barbed wire. Death matches were still in their incubation period here. It would still be MONTHS before some weirdos decided to throw a cobra into a ring sealed by saran wrap or fight in the middle of a grocery store. So Kurisu and Onita wrestle in their normal trunks as the ringside area is completely covered in barbed wire boards. And these two insane men sanely do not want to land in the barbed wire. But they are vicious in how they each want the other to land in the barbed wire. Kurisu especially just jams his boot into Onita's throat to try and force him over the apron and into the wire. There are some great shots of Onita dangling perilously off the apron as Kurisu's outstretched leg pushed at his throat and jaw, forcing him down into the wire. And when he finally does fall into it, we don't get a modern back bump we've all grown bored of, we get a guy reacting the exact same way you or I would react if we accidentally fell into barbed wire. There's no rolling around in it, just a man trying to move as slowly as possible so as not to rip the shit out of his skin. Sheesh Onita is kneeling in it while trying to get his singlet untangled. His kneepads are not covering his knees. Personally, I hate kneeling on any hard surface, so I can only imagine how awful is it kneeling in barbed wire. Kurisu keeps kicking Onita into the wire, and in a great moment Onita finally catches Kurisu's leg and starts yanking him towards the wire. And man Kurisu does NOT want to go into the wire.

When I was 13 my mom let me throw a back to school pool party. It being a pool party, there were moments of meatheads throwing girls into the pool. My friend Brigit had just started her period and really had zero interest in going into that pool, but meatheads trying to throw someone in a pool LOVE resistance. They love the chase, they love the screams. They are monsters. Brigit eventually went into that pool, but man did she put up a fight on the way there. It took a few guys to drag a 115 pound girl into a pool. Kurisu held onto that bottom rope as strongly as Brigit held onto every damn thing she could get her hands on to slow down her eventual drop into the pool. Kurisu looked like a guy who had been promised backstage that he wouldn't have to go into the wire...and was realizing in real time that Onita was going to get him into that wire. Kurisu looked like a kid who had been tricked into going to the dentist, with Onita as the dad trying to drag him out of the damn car. Onita gets far more cut up by wire, Kurisu mostly avoids it by hanging on as long as possible and mostly falling underneath the apron, away from wire, and then taking his time to carefully get out of it. Again, he looked exactly how any of us would have looked in the same situation. And before long Kurisu is back on the apron and they're laying in shots to each other. The barbed wire stuff is amusing, but I like these two punching face. And we get some face punching, and Kurisu does a not recommended superplex. It looked like two people trying out a superplex for the first time. And then Onita decides to punish Kurisu for all of those shoves into the wire by just absolutely planting him with the thunder fire bomb. I mean vertically planting him. I wonder how many young boys watching secretly celebrated as Kurisu was just driven headfirst into the mat? It's not enough to stop Kurisu, so he gets another bomb for his troubles, and even then kicks out the as soon as the 3 is counted. Again this was a match that I don't think would go over today, but due to the personalities involved and the time it happened, I really enjoyed it. FMW was such a strange turning point in wrestling history.

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